


Paper Memories

by lunaseemoony



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Episode: s01e14 The Christmas Invasion, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 06:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4380548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaseemoony/pseuds/lunaseemoony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose gets a taste of her new Doctor when she finds him in his study risking his safety for a pair of paper crowns</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is for hermitinthetardis's prompt

 

“Doctor, what are you doing up there?” Rose hollered from the floor of the Doctor’s study.

He was high up on a bookcase that was easily the height of a small building. He had to have climbed up there, Rose wagered. But why? Didn’t he have a - oh. Rose bit back a snicker after spying his ladder down the row. He must have kicked it while reaching for something. Still, the sight of his pendulum legs coupled with his Mufasa arms (poor taste, yes, but he was the one who started the Lion King analogies earlier) clambering for purchase on the shelf was one to laugh at. The poor Doctor really did need a companion to keep him company. She just didn’t realize it was also to keep him from falling to shattering all his newly formed bones. Her old Doctor,  _her_  Doctor would never have been so reckless. He’d have taken his time.

“Rose! Oh,  _perfect_  timing!” the Doctor laughed in triumph and had to catch himself after his cheering lost him some valuable real estate on the shelf.

“Oh yeah?” she teased, and tucked her tongue between her teeth while noticing that her vantage point allowed her a good view of the Doctor’s… later. The poor man was in danger of injuring himself.

“A little help?” he strained in a breathless bark.

Rose nearly made a comment about him appearing to have everything well in hand. That’s what  _her_  Doctor would have said to her, that he was just fine thank you. But once again, he wouldn’t have fashioned himself into a poorly coordinated monkey on a vine. At least this one had the sense to ask for help when he needed it, even if he didn’t have the same amount of sense to not find himself in this situation in the first place.

Rose beamed in a hearty giggle and scampered across the open study’s wooden-coral floor, sliding into the beanstalk of a ladder. She’d seen people riding on these things in films and always wanted to try it. Was it wrong then, to thank the Doctor’s foolhardiness as she climbed up the rungs of the ladder and pushed herself away so she rode along the shelves? She chose to think not. Rose gasped and squealed with glee as the ladder whooshed along. She was so enamored with it that she nearly crashed into the hanging Doctor.

“I’ve got you!” Rose exclaimed while reaching out for the Doctor with an open arm.

She didn’t have much choice but to catch him. It was either she catch him or he would fall. The latter not being an option, Rose wrapped her arm around the Doctor’s side and hugged him close. The moment he was within reach of the ladder he fought to reach a rail.

“You sure do,” the Doctor sighed when the ladder stopped sliding back and forth.

The Doctor leaned against the railing of the ladder a little to brace himself on it. He was close enough to her that Rose could breathe in his aftershave and hair gel. She could map every freckle and moisten his chapped lip. It was the first time she noticed this face had freckles to match his chestnut eyes. If the two of them weren’t thirty feet up in the air and clinging to a flimsy ladder Rose might have closed her eyes to commit it all to memory. Her need to be safe was only a little bit stronger. The moment they were on the floor she reminded herself to look again, to  _really_  look. He clinched it with his waggling eyebrows and boyish grin before opting to climb down first. He looked up at her the entire way. She could feel his eyes planted on her bum, the cheeky man. This one wasn’t at all shy about it. Whether Rose liked this remained to be seen.

He caught her in his arms and swung her when she leaped from the last few rungs of the ladder. Rose couldn’t help but burst into a fit of giggles. It had only been a few short hours. The exhilaration of knowing she still had a Doctor to travel with had her brimming with energy, completely filled with life. She’d lost one Doctor, and had gained another one. It was still settling in. She was only just now starting to learn about this one’s mannerisms. One that she liked was the humming grin that buzzed into her ear and raced down her spine.

“What were you doing up there anyway, Doctor?” Rose finally asked when he set her down.

“Oh!” He shouted and smacked the top of his head. His face turned down and he whined a little at the shelves high above. Whatever he was up there for, it was still up there. “I meant to grab that glass case up there.”

“Hang on, I’ll get it. You’ve had enough high flying for one day, yeah?”

Rose made swift work of climbing up and down the ladder. She was careful about keeping the case under her arm, and handed it to the Doctor before hopping off the ladder again.

“What’s it for?”

“These. It’s the best fit for them. I wanted one case for them both. And a lower spot on the bookcases to display them,” the Doctor explained while holding up their red and pink paper crowns. They were wrinkled but otherwise perfectly intact.

Rose giggled. “Doctor, you kept those? They’re practically worthless.”

The Doctor didn’t reply at first while he set the glass case down on his desk. He popped the lid up and handled each crown as if they were made of glass themselves. To him it must not have looked the least bit ridiculous. So Rose remained silent and watched him. When the crowns sat next to one another safely contained in the case, he closed the lid and shifted the case forward to the center of his desk.

“They won’t fetch anything at a market, no. But that doesn’t make them worthless,” the Doctor defended. “They commemorate our first Christmas together.”

“First,” Rose considered.

The Doctor stepped closer to Rose and tried to hide the worry on his face with a smile, she guessed. But the concern laced his voice. “Of many, I hope.”

Rose thought back to their roaring good time in her mum’s flat. The Doctor had meshed with her family so thoroughly that in an instant the idea of a Christmas without him seemed unnatural. And though he hadn’t said as much in so many words, the Doctor was right. Their memories were precious and fragile, just like those little crowns. But maybe with enough holidays they could fashion those little paper memories into a chain and make them stronger. It became clear to Rose that the Doctor didn’t want to forget them. If he put those crowns in a glass case they were safe. Maybe their time together could never be made safe, but at least their memories could.


End file.
